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Planned at the beginning of the 1920s as a garden city on the fringes of Jerusalem, the suburbs of Talbiyeh and Rehavia became a centre of emigration for German Jews from 1933 onwards, acquiring the nickname ‘Grunewald on the Orient’ - a reference to the residential south-western district of Berlin. The neighbourhood became a vibrant German-Jewish microcosm with residents including the poet and playwright Else Lasker-Schüler, the historian Gershom Scholem, and the philosopher and scholar Martin Buber. It was an idyllic setting, but life was also tough and could be unforgiving; the city had long been divided, and the residents of Talbiyeh and Rehavia found themselves caught up in the conflict. After the war, the recent history of the Shoah weighed heavily on the neighbourhood’s inhabitants, but it also became a place of German Israeli rapprochement. German Jerusalem is a story of a culturally distinctive community, and a fascinating biography of those who lived and worked there.
About the author
Thomas Sparr is a publisher-at-large for the German publisher Suhrkamp and former chief editor at Siedler. For many years, he worked at the Hebrew University and Leo Baeck Institute in Jerusalem.
Stephen Brown is a playwright, translator, and cultural critic. His translations from German include Sartorius's
The Princes' Islands and Birgit Haustedt's
Rilke's Venice.
Summary
In the 1920s, before the establishment of Israel, a group of German Jews settled in a garden city on the outskirts of Jerusalem. During World War II, their quiet community, nicknamed Grunewald on the Orient, emerged as both an immigrant safe haven and a lively expatriate hotspot, welcoming many famous residents including poet-playwright Else Lasker-Schüler, historian Gershom Scholem, and philosopher Martin Buber. It was an idyllic setting, if fraught with unique tensions on the fringes of the long-divided holy city. After the war, despite the weight of the Shoah, the neighborhood miraculously repaired shattered bonds between German and Israeli residents. In German Jerusalem, Thomas Sparr opens up the history of this remarkable community and the forgotten borderland they called home.
